A company called Kettle Cycles (kettlecycles.com) has developed a silicon-carbide-ceramic-carbon (SiCCC for short) disc brake rotor for mountain bikes and is currently seeking financial backers through popular crowd funding website Kickstarter.

The SiCCC rotor purports to be light weight, wear resistant with superior heat management. Silicon Carbide for friction, Ceramic for heat, and Carbon fiber for strength. There are two versions of the rotors with the main difference being the single carbon rotor/spider unit currently dubbed the “SFL” (our guess is it stands for “Super Freakin’ Light” or some iteration thereof) and the “SiC” version that has a carbon spider mounted to the rotor with metal fasteners.

Watch this video for more info:

How light is light? 40 grams!

Kettle Cycles does caution that the unique materials used require a bedding-in of the pads and rotors.

Personally, I’m interested to see how Kettle Cycles has solved the problem that plagues carbon rotors even on motorcycles (the need to get heat into the disc before they will work consistently).

Gregg Kato studied journalism and broadcasting in college while working many different jobs including deejaying, driving a forklift and building web sites (not all at the same time). Kato enjoys riding local Santa Cruz trails. Besides being an avid mountain biker, he is also a motorcycle fanatic. Two wheels, one Passion.

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@Kettle Cycles
Obviously the rotors are going to be as true as possible out of the box, but what happens if the rotor isn’t 100% true from shipping or trail debris, and you need to true it? A steel rotor you can tweak to make it run smoothly in between the pistons. Also rotor “spider mounting units” have always been cool looking and a place to lose a couple grams but it’s still a weak spot in a part that needs to be quite durable and enduring. I’ve seen rotor spiders come loose on Avid XX, Shimano XTR/XT/Saint and even Hope, which then need to be replaced. Which brings me to my last question, cost of these rotors? Basic steel rotors are easy to true and cheap compared to other bike parts. After already spending at least a couple hundred dollars on a new set of brakes most customers will probably want to pass on a $100 rotor, except for the yuppies of Boulder, CO, they love carbon.

Kipp, Material properties are an intriguing science. There is no need to true the SiCCC rotors. Riders will wreck, a wreck that would damage a steel rotor may or may not damage the SiCCC. Some of the more annoying rotor damage generally doesn’t affect the SiCCC, garage bumps and heat distortion are some examples. If you hit steel rotors or SiCCC rotors with a 12lb sledge, they both become unusable. We don’t make parts based on potential for mass appeal. We have no mass merchant distribution in our business plan. We thought these should exist, so we made them. We have a crash replacement program and a warranty. Thanks for the interest!

The price has gone up since I bought them to 328 for one 160mm + one 180mm.
I used them less than 3 weeks, bedding them in is not as easy as described.
Maybe 292.99 US $ is not too expensive after all if you want very light rotors.